Cleaning up Pollution with Magnets by BYTEMITE

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Cleaning up Pollution with Magnets

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Monday, July 2, 2012 06:30
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Thursday, June 28, 2012 1:03 PM

Back when news of the Deep Horizon oil spill broke, you might recall that originally I was hopeful that the biological grade surfactants being sprayed over the surface would be sufficient to address the problem, as this was SOP for oil and petroleum spills in groundwater.

Of course, it turns out that oil spills on the open ocean are a lot more complicated than subsurface oil spills, and that leaving it up to bacteria to naturally attenuate is not actually the best solution ever in this situation. There are a whole host of other problems this method introduces, such as dropping oxygen content in the water as the bacteria work, and that once you mobilize the stuff with the surfactants, you don't really have any means to draw the spill back out of the water back to you. Instead, you're mostly relying on diluting it to safe levels. Which obviously may not always work.

But apparently people are working on MAGNETIC soap - binds to oil and grease, then clean it up with magnets.

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/07-high-tech-soaps-just-might-cle
an-up-the-planet

Interesting stuff.

EDIT: I had only gotten part way through the article before posting, it looks like it details a number of other interesting proposals as well.

Obviously, we want to prevent spills from happening in the first place, but it would be phenomenal of some of these new compounds under development were effective.

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Thursday, June 28, 2012 1:39 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I'm all in favor of new, more effective cleanup technologies!

--Anthony

Note to Self:
Raptor - woman testifying about birth control is a slut (the term fits.)
Six - Wow, isn't Niki quite the CUNT? And, yes, I spell that in all caps....
Wulf - Niki is a stupid fucking bitch who should hurry up and die.

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -Thomas Szasz

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Sunday, July 1, 2012 5:14 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Cool.

I have Kathy Bates on speed dial, mwa ha ha ha (in exaggeratedly evil voice)

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Monday, July 2, 2012 6:30 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I'm afraid I'm more cynical than you. I figure the number of oil spills and other shit will overcome any efforts to clean up their messes, and given THEY have no interest in cleanup technologty...well, I've just become a pretty solid cynic about our chances of survival at this point...

Still, good to hear and I suppose as long as we can stave it off, better than nothing.

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